


Fifteen Flares

by flyingwide



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:52:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingwide/pseuds/flyingwide
Summary: “I just came here to tell you that you were right.”John’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline; Sara was mildly offended. “I was right? About what exactly?”Sara drew herself up as much as possible and said, “I am wholly ignorant about the world that men can freely inhabit, one of pleasure and gratification. One thatyoufreely inhabit. You claimed to be happy about that ignorance and yet you’re the only man I can trust to educate me in it.”





	Fifteen Flares

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Ocean Eyes" by Billie Eilish because I'm a cliche. It's fine, I'm dealing with it.
> 
> This is not what I should be working on. As is the usual way things go around here. This thing is the most gratuitous, ridiculous, het smut I have ever written. I have no excuses. For any of it.
> 
> Apologies for any issues this fic has, I'm throwing it up before episode 7 because I'm terrified it's going to get Jossed. If it turns out it is, I can only hope it's in a good way. Also, full disclosure, I haven't read the book.

Marcus had let his mouth run away from him again, much to his brother’s dismay. Somehow they had gotten on the subject of comparing sex acts. She supposed the initial fault lay with her as she had asked a similar question that had since gone far off track. She wasn’t sure any of them needed a seminar on how the inhabitants of Paresis Hall referred to their genitalia by their female counterparts and the sexual titillation found therein. Lucius, judging by his pained muttering in Yiddish, agreed.

“Really,” John cut in, a grimace on his face, “I think we’ve gotten past empathy with our suspect and have fallen straight into lewdness.” He glanced at her as he said it and she bristled. She had found the conversation uncomfortable but she thought he’d learned by now that she didn’t need a protector.

“I’m not wholly ignorant of the sex act between a man and a woman, John, nor should I blush at any description of a body part.” John jerked as if she’d struck him.

“I hope you are wholly ignorant,” he said fervently.

She held his gaze, hers impassive while his was dismayed, until he broke it to shake his head and look down. “But regardless of audience, I fail to see how this line of conversation will help us learn anything of our murderer’s identity.”

“Perhaps not but his predilections could tell us where he intends to strike next,” Kreizler said and John slumped back in his chair with a sigh. She watched John tighten his hand into a fist a few times, fingers still shaking when they parted. He reached into the pocket where he kept his cigarettes. Glancing up around the table again, Sara found Kreizler watching her. She stuck her chin out, an unspoken challenge she hadn’t been able to resist with him lately. He inclined his head at her and she turned her attention back to the brothers, one taking Kreizler’s comments as approval and the other watching him with well-worn patience.

At least, she thought to herself, no one had brought up onanism.

 

Evening was just falling when John followed her out of Kreizler’s house. He smiled at Mary and she ducked her head. “She likes you very much,” Sara commented absently to him. She heard a skidding sound behind her like John hadn’t picked up his foot enough and had stopped. Turning, she looked up at him in concern.

“What of it?” he asked. She blinked at him.

“She’s fond of you and she is absolutely devoted to Kreizler. We can assume she feels you are nearly as devoted to him as she is. Much as you pretend otherwise, I don’t think she’s wrong.”

“Ah,” John said, brow furrowing with an emotion she couldn’t read before it was quickly replaced with a civil smile. He joined her at the bottom of the steps and held out his arm. She hesitated but took it. “I doubt very much that anyone is devoted to him as Mary. Nor anyone who is half as besotted.”

Sara looked up at him with a sharp frown. “Don’t be cruel, John.”

“Cruel? I don’t mean to be. The fact is the man has a damnable habit of getting people to love him and only hurting them in return. But he does care for her. You said it yourself. He tries to protect her from the evil that lives in our world.”

“He wouldn’t like you calling it something so simple as ‘evil,’” Sara pointed out and John raised his eyes skyward as if asking for divine intervention. “And it’s just like you to see keeping a woman in the dark as a sign of affection.” She broke free of his arm to hail a hansom.

John shook his head as he handed her up into the carriage. “I knew you were going to be angry with me for that,” he told her, climbing up behind her and tapping on the cab’s roof. The back wheels rattled as the hansom rolled forward; if she knew John, she knew its young driver was already paid more handsomely than required.

“Why would I be angry?” Sara asked coolly. “It’s no secret that you don’t view me as an equal colleague.” She was looking away from him so she didn’t see his reaction but when he touched her shoulder, Sara turned to stare into John’s shocked expression.

“I have nothing but respect for you, for your work, for your insight. This entire thing would have fallen apart if not for your resolve, Kreizler be damned,” John said, fingers tight enough around her arm that the gigot sleeve dimpled. Sara was knocked on her heels for a moment in the face of such intense emotion— but only a moment.

“Then why do you insist on treating me as if I am fragile, as if I shall take to my swooning couch if I so much as hear mention of an act of lascivious nature?” she demanded. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I am entirely unfamiliar. Do you assume that the women you take to your bed are not as desirous as you?”

“No, of course not!” John exclaimed. “They… Well, I assume they…”

“Women and men are not so different, John. I deserve your respect.”

“You have it,” John swore.

“I do not want your deference,” she pressed. He nodded. “Your assumption of my ignorance on any subject is insulting.” John swallowed hard but nodded again. They sat in a tense silence across cobblestone streets while the lamplighters attended their duties all around them. Sara was pulled out of her contemplation of them by John’s voice.

“Sara,” he said softly. “I’ve no right to ask it but… on the subject of your ignorance…” She swung around to find that same fear was back in his eyes, mixed with something deeper that she couldn’t name, and it stole her breath. He took her hand in his and pressed his thumb gently against his knuckle. She understood the question he wasn’t asking and her mouth went dry.

“You’re right,” she said breathlessly. “You’ve no right to ask it.” It was hard to read his face like this, his back to the street in a covered cab. If she hadn’t known him so well, maybe she wouldn’t have noticed the intensity of his gaze. She almost wished she didn’t know him quite so well so she could ignore the flutter in her chest at being stared at like this.

The hansom rattled to a stop and Sara was half-blinded when she looked into the full glare of the streetlamps outside her house. “Please excuse me,” she said and John all but leaped out of the hansom to help her down. The hansom took off as he walked her to her door and John shook his head in annoyance. Sara found herself smiling up at him, his actions all seeming comical and oversized when compared to the moments of true sincerity between them. “I could see myself to my door,” she reminded him gently, her scolding weak as her anger faded. He met her teasing in kind.

“What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t see a lady safely inside? There’s a murderer about, you know.”

Tessie opened the door and held it wide for both to enter if they so chose. Sara was moments from opening her mouth, asking John to step inside, to stay, when John took her hand again. He bowed, pressed his lips against it, and bid both women good night. Sara called out his name and he paused beside the lamppost, his silhouette half hidden in the glare. She went down the steps quickly. “Don’t,” she said, reaching out and putting her fingers against his chest, just for a moment, before pulling back sharply. “Don’t… take risks. Like you said, there’s a murderer about.”

John looked at her, truly looked like he saw right through her, and nodded. “Of course.” He tipped forward a little and she imagined for a moment that he might press another kiss to her cheek. Instead he only nodded a bow and turned away.

Tessie had her lips pressed together when Sara joined her again at the top of the stairs. “He’s grown up some, hasn’t he?” she asked and Sara shook her head.

“Don’t start,” Sara told her and Tessie fought to hide her smile.

But lying in bed that night, Sara considered her ignorance. Self-gratification was something she wasn’t unfamiliar with; after coming home from the sanitarium, there was some measure even of defiance in the forbidden act in the face of the sanctimonious harping on the health of her body and soul she’d found there. She knew enough of the act of copulation to find it sounded uncomfortable and unlikely to hold any pleasure for the woman involved. But Jane, her level-headed and intelligent Jane, had spoken of it with the delight of the forbidden joy. Looking at Milton, he hadn’t seemed like any sort of secret lothario. But a man of John’s experience…

She groaned out loud. Turning on her lamp, she padded on bare feet across the floor in just her shift. Clearly, this required a drink.

 

By the time John had invited her to supper several days later, Sara was fully annoyed. It seemed every hour of every day brought something new to rub her own lack of experience in her face. She wasn’t sleeping well, bottled up like long-shelved champagne, but the idea of achieving satisfaction at her own hands with John in her mind was galling, humiliating. Too many comments within the police department were aimed at seeing a virgin blush, even with that bastard Connor gone. So she determined a way to put an end to two sources of frustration at once. It was foolhardy in the extreme and she knew that; she also knew that John’s loyalty was unshakeable.

John was clearly surprised to see her waiting in his garden. “Sara? Supper is not for a few hours. You’re not here to cancel on me, are you?”

“No, John, nothing like that,” Sara said, nerves in her stomach wearing her patience thin. “I need to speak with you.”

“So urgently that you couldn’t even wait inside?” he asked, opening the door and holding it open for her. Sara realized she could easily walk under the arm he had braced against the door and she bristled again. She hated feeling small and this situation she’d put herself in wasn’t one to make her feel like she was on steady ground.

“It’s something of a private nature. I didn’t know if your grandmother was in or how much you’d given away to her.” The words were true enough but what they connoted was a flat-out lie. It might have held up if she had truly been there on police business. The truth was that she couldn’t bear making small talk while steeling herself for the conversation she felt they must have.

Sara tried to not appear anxious as John moved around her. “Right,” John replied absently, nudging over a vase of full to bursting of gardenias and daisies to set down his sketchbook on a console. “I’ve taken over my grandfather’s study. No one will disturb us there.” He held his arm out to her and she took it with slight exasperation over his outsized gentility.

He led the way up the stairs, not turning his gaze for a moment beyond herself and their path. For her own part, Sara couldn’t resist looking around furtively for any of the staff around to listen at keyholes. When they entered the study, John strode over to the chair facing the head of the desk and pulled it out for her. Sara felt his eyes on her back as she faced the door and turned the key in the lock. She heard quick steps behind her and almost collided with John’s chest as she turned back towards him.

“It’s that urgent?” he asked quietly, concern clear in his aspect. “What has happened? Were you threatened? Were you followed?”

“What? No,” Sara assured him. “This has nothing to do with police business. Or rather, it does but not in a traditional sense.”

John looked calmed slightly but not by much. He hesitated but placed his hand on her arm. “Then what is it? You look…”

“What?” Sara asked sharply, prickly with nerves and too ready for an insult.

“On anyone else, I’d say frightened.”

She scoffed. “Frightened? I’m not frightened.” She was, deep down; she knew it and hated it. She took a few steps past him but turned to face him. She would not shy from this, not after everything. Steeling herself, she plowed on. “I just came here to tell you that you were right.”

John’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline; Sara was mildly offended. “I was right? About what exactly?”

Sara drew herself up as much as possible and said, “I am wholly ignorant about the world that men can freely inhabit, one of pleasure and gratification. One that _you_ freely inhabit. You claimed to be happy about that ignorance and yet you’re the only man I can trust to educate me in it.”

John was knocked speechless for a moment, his jaw hanging open. Sara schooled her features into something she hope read as impassive, calm. Her heart was thudding in her chest as she waited for his response.

It came physically. Grabbing her firmly by the elbow, John all but dragged her further into the room and away from the door.

“You cannot say such things-” he began in a hissed whisper.

Sara cut him off. “If I am to understand, if I am to truly take part in this hunt-”

His fingers dug in deeper, enough to hurt. “This hunt? You ask me to, what? To… to defile you in such a-”

“Defile? Do you really believe that the touch of a man turns a woman to filth?”

His face grew thunderous and Sara prepared herself to weather it, her temper rising to match his. She had been prepared for shock, dismay, and refusal. Anger caught her off-guard. “Is this why you showed up at my door hours early? Did you imagine that I would take you, here in my grandfather’s study, then go on with you like nothing had changed?”

She snapped back, “Nothing would change, nothing aside from my having a better understanding of our murderer, of why he seeks pleasure where and why he does.”

“You’d throw away your virginity, risk your reputation, for him?” She opened her mouth to retort but he hadn’t finished. “ _For Kreizler_?”

Sara felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped in her chest. The power of her own rage at the presumption shocked her. How dare he. How dare he imagine that this had been done with such carelessness, with such a foolish motivation. When she spoke, it was with the chilly grace of an iceberg. “You say you respect me and then you insult me in this way. You think I’m some silly lovesick child, taking risks with her own life to impress her sweetheart?” She stepped back from him, fury making it hard to breathe. “If this is how you regard me, then I’m wasting both our time. Good day, Mr. Moore.”

She had made it a few steps away from the door when John caught her in his arms. Lashing out, she struck him in the chest hard enough to wind him; he held firm yet. “Unhand me. You’ve humiliated me enough for one day.”

“There is no such thing as true privacy in this house,” John gritted out, voice low and soft. Even over the enraged heaving of their breathing, she could her a maid’s cheerful hum on just the other side of the door. “You may not have a care for your reputation but I do.”

“You’re not my father, John,” she said, matching his volume.

“And I don’t mean to be. But a woman’s respectability is vital to moving in the circles you do. Do you think you’d keep your job with the pall of scandal?”

Sara swallowed hard as the words brought the flicker of fear they’d intended. “I know how to be discreet.”

“Do you? I’ve yet to see it today. I’d do anything in my power to help you but I will not take your maidenhood.” She opened her mouth but he didn’t let her get a word out. “Not. Here.” He reaches behind her and unlocked the door with a soft click, nearing inaudible. Sara was all set to storm down the stairs, down the front steps, and away from the house when John caught her by the waist. She gasped at this sudden and public manhandling, affronted. John let go immediately and took the steps two at a time, catching his grandmother as she exited her parlor.

“Granny!” he said cheerfully, all evidence of the man she’d just argued with gone. “Look who I’ve brought to dinner!”

Mrs. Moore looked at her grandson with suspicion but greeted Sara warmly.

 

Dinner and the preceding conversation was much less stilted than it ought to have been. Mrs. Moore was a wit and a force and Sara had always been fond of her. If the woman had any inkling of the tension between two young people who shared her table, she didn’t mention it.

“Of course I’ll escort Miss Howard home,” John assured his grandmother when she made noises about a young woman alone after dark. It wasn’t seemly and it wasn’t safe. Sara could have screamed at this stifling. Instead, she grit her teeth, that day as every day, and resigned herself to it.

In the carriage, they were quiet for a long time. “I’d never seek to humiliate you,” John said softly after a while.

“I know,” she replied, just as softly. “It’s why I trusted you.” She heard him inhale sharply but didn’t dare look at him.

Tessie met them at the door. Feeling vaguely discomfited by the moment of déjà vu, Sara waited for John to make his fumbling goodbyes. Instead, he asked gently, “May I come in?” Sara just nodded.

“May I take your coat?” Tessie asked and John shrugged it off his shoulders. Sara handed her her own and Tessie left them alone in the foyer, the rest of the barebones Howard staff already retired for the night.

“Will your maid talk?” John asked, voice a rough whisper.

“None of my staff will.”

They stared each other down for a moment before John inclined his head to Sara. “Lead where you will then.”

Sara’s nerves returned tenfold, as if the anger that had replaced them for a while had only fed them. She walked quietly up the stairs and John followed. The walk to her bedroom was a familiar one and shouldn’t have felt so different just because a man trailed behind her. Sara quickened her pace and only stopped once she reached the middle of her room. John stepped inside and locked it behind him. Suddenly finding her mouth was dry, Sara headed for the decanter at her toilette. She took a sip before walking back over to face John. He took the cup when she offered but didn’t drink.

Not saying a word, she reached behind her to start unbuttoning her shirtwaist at the neck. John licked his lips and watched her. She reached the center of her shoulder blades, the hardest buttons to handle on her own. She must have given away her frustration because John swallowed then moved behind her. Sara’s fingers froze where they were when she heard the glass thud against the console table.

“May I?” John asked from behind her, the warmth of his body tangible between them.

“You may,” Sara said, voice never betraying any sort of shake or hesitation. Her heart beat fast and her breath came shallow as she felt fabric part under his fingers. Soon, too soon, his fingers came to rest at the small of her back. Taking a deep breath, Sara’s hand went to the buttons at the waist of her skirt. Once undone, the garment slipped down her hips and revealed the top of her petticoat.

John hesitated a moment but finished undoing the shirtwaist’s buttons. Swallowing against her dry throat, Sara offered one wrist behind her; John took it in hand and twisted free the button there. Without prompting, he sought out the other wrist and did the same.

Sara let out an involuntary little sigh when John’s fingers slid over her shoulders to help the shirtwaist off them. Shaking herself, she stepped out of her heavy skirt and kicked them away. Still, she did not face John. “Beautiful,” he murmured behind him. Her stomach pooled with warmth.

“I am not your Gibson Girl, John Moore,” she said sharply, looking at him over her shoulder. The breathless way she said it took out much of the force. The awestruck look of his face didn’t fade.

“It isn’t just your body that I find beautiful, Sara,” he told her. “It’s your mind, your wit… your laughter.”

Sara whirled around, suddenly unable to stand not being able to see him. Her hands went to the waistband of his trousers; later, she’d kick herself for how wanton it made her seem, that that had been the first way she had touched him. John caught her hands between his and pulled them away. “I told you,” he said softly, “I have no intention of taking your maidenhood.”

She could have screamed her frustration. “Then why are we here?”

“You asked me to teach you pleasure. There are many other ways to achieve it.” The words sent a shiver straight through her and her quick breathing suddenly sounded thunderous in the quiet. “May I?” he asked again and circled his arms around her to untie her petticoats. Closing her eyes, Sara bit her lip to stifle the gasp that the sudden heat of his body provoked. John stepped away from her; after a moment, Sara’s eyes fluttered open.

John watched her, waiting. “What?” she asked, fighting the urge to cover herself. But John wasn’t looking at her body. His eyes never left hers.

“Have you gotten what you were looking for?” he asked quietly. “Did you find what you meant to?”

“Are you leaving?” she demanded.

He looked at her with a sort of world-weary patience that made her feel like a child. “Would you like me to?”

“No,” she said firmly. His eyes widened a bit. Sara pulled her corset cover over her head with more defiance than the action should reasonably have contained. She stood there in just her corset, chemise, and stockings, a pool of silken fabric around her feet. Taking a step towards him, Sara put a hand to John’s chest. “Would you like to leave?” she asked; he hesitated a moment before murmuring, “No.”

“Then finish what you started, John.” She started to unhook her own stockings from their garters when he caught her hands again.

“On the bed,” he told her.

It wasn’t an order nor was it presented as one.

Still, nerves throbbed in her, mixing with her arousal in a way that made her head spin. It took everything she had to not let it weaken her step or shorten her stride as she placed herself on the edge of the bed. He followed and knelt at her feet.

Sara could only stare down at him, a rattlingly unfamiliar view. Gently, John placed his hand on the back of her calf and drew it down to her ankle. A breathy whimper escaped her at the caress and she pressed her lips together. John didn’t seem to notice as he unbuttoned first one shoe and then the other. That done, he looked up into her eyes. Sara stared back unfailingly, resisting the urge to smooth her chemise down her thighs. With both hands, John slid his palms up the backs of Sara’s legs, twisting them to the front when he reached her thighs.

Sara couldn’t help but let out a moan, quickly stifled. The chances of anyone overhearing were slim but the fear was still very real. John slid one thumb under the hook of her garter and undid it. The other quickly followed. Watching her carefully, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee. Sara bit her lip to stop herself from whimpering, the feeling terrifyingly intimate and arousing. She knew that if he looked, he’d be able to see her sex. He took the edge of one stocking and slowly began to roll it down her leg. Sara didn’t know whether to look at him or give in to the feeling and throw her head back. She compromised by attacking the pins that held her hair up, just feeling John’s hands on her.

By the time her legs were bare, her hair was free and the pins were scattered across the ground. John stood again and braced one knee on the bed so he hovered over her. Anxiety flared again and she shoved it away; she had wanted this, had asked for it in words. He put his hand flat on her abdomen, fingers against the line of her corset.

“Will you take this off?” he asked, voice soft and gentle.

“Yes,” she answered. Sitting up would put her directly into his space and though she felt a deep urge to throw her arms around him, to pull him into her, she slid back across the bedcover. Sara took off her corset every day, often without help. But suddenly, with John’s eyes sliding across her body, the task seemed daunting. She struggled through it, haste making her clumsy. Soon she was free of it and sat on the bed in just her chemise. John moved closer and she leaned back away from him on instinct. Landing on her back, she looked up at him. He placed a hand on the outside of her knee, fingers curling around it. Sara’s chest heaved as she forced herself to breathe in deeply, the skin prickling as she felt her nipples harden under her chemise.

Slowly, cautiously, John’s hand moved up her thigh. He hesitated a moment at the line of her chemise but continued on, moving the fabric up to her hip. A whimper, pathetic sounding in her own ears, rose in Sara’s throat. “Would you like me to stop?” John asked. Sara felt like she could feel his voice in her bones.

“No,” she said, clear and strong. John nodded and parted her thighs. Sara realized after a moment that she was shuddering, her whole body practically vibrating under his hands. She knew that John could feel it too as his fingers brushed between her legs.

“I need you to tell me what you feel,” John told her. Sara could barely understand him through the fog of arousal in her brain.

“Excuse me?”

“You wanted to learn about pleasure. I cannot feel what you feel. I cannot know it. You have to tell me.”

She swallowed hard and stared up at the ceiling. “You said you’d never seek to humiliate me.” It was only a gentle rebuke as her body betrayed her, physically begging for his touch as her hips made an aborted little arch towards him.

“And I never would. I don’t want to hurt you or to push you. I don’t want you to seek out some better teacher because I failed you.” The words brought a scarlet flush to Sara’s cheeks but she nodded.

“You are not hurting me,” she murmured. His fingers were barely a presence on her skin but still lit fire in their wake as John dragged them back and forth across her inner thighs. Sara’s head hit the bed with a sigh as he drew them higher.

“Tell me how you feel.”

“Like fire,” she said, trailing off as a half moan caught her off guard. “Like an addict. Please.”

When his fingers trailed through the folds of her sex, she cried out before slapping a hand over her mouth. John shushed her, caressing her flank. His fingers caught and pressed on the nub between her folds. She jerked and whined against her own hand.

“Tell me how you feel,” he repeated.

“Damn you. Please. I need you to…” John pressed against her again and she had to press her hand hard against her mouth again. “I can’t think. I can’t… Ahh…” He drew two fingers down her and she could feel herself dripping under his hand. She should have been humiliated and maybe later she would be. But Sara barely even noticed as she spread her legs wider. She couldn’t think of anything else, couldn’t even contemplate his hands ever leaving her, not before she…

“It’s… it’s overwhelming… I need it. I’ve never needed anything like this, I can’t…” Her body jerked under his hands and she had to squeeze her eyes shut. When he slid a finger inside her, further than she’d ever gotten by herself, Sara sobbed against the hand muffling her mouth. It hurt but not enough to make her want him to stop, his finger pressed against a wall inside her. He twisted it and she could have screamed. “It hurts but it’s not…” she tried to say but gave up.

“The pleasure is in the pain?” John asked, ostensible teasing lost in the dark rumble of his voice, and Sara shuddered under him.

“Yes, damn you. Now please. Please let me….” Moving closer to her, John crooked his fingers inside her and used his thumb against her until the wave of pleasure crested. John’s own hand covered her mouth; she wasn’t even aware of much noise she had been making until her wits returned and she swallowed against a sore throat.

John withdrew slowly, his expression stony. It took Sara a few long moments to realize that he was waiting for her regret, for her to hate him for what they had just done. He was staring at where his right hand was curled in a fist and arousal lurched inside Sara again when she realized his fingers were still slick with her. “Thank you,” she said quietly as she sat up and he jerked as if she had railed at him.

“Did you learn what you set out to?” he asked, voice rough.

“Yes. I didn’t understand how all-consuming it is, how nothing else matters in that moment. When chasing that end, there is nothing else in the world.” He nodded in response but still didn’t move. “John. Look at me.” He looked up at her, guilt in his eyes. “I don’t regret it for a moment.”

“You might yet.”

“I won’t,” she told him firmly.

“How can you know? I made a choice and damned us both.”

Her temper flared to life again. “I asked this of you. We both made a choice. It was what I wanted. Respect me enough to acknowledge that.”

“Maybe we both wanted it for the wrong reasons.”

Sara set her jaw then settled up on her knees. She grabbed John by his lapels and pulled him in to press their lips together. He was still fully dressed against her nearly naked form and his hands fisted in the silken fabric at her hips when she opened her mouth to him. John’s breathing was ragged when he pulled away, arms still around her. “I don’t regret it,” she told him and he kissed her again.

“I will ask you again tomorrow.”

“The answer will be the same.”

“As long as you will answer me, that you don’t run from me, I will take whatever answer you give.” He kissed her one last time before he left her.

Sara stared at the door for a long time even as she stretched and searched her body for lingering sparks of pleasure. She fell asleep eventually and slept more soundly than she could remember.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, let's be honest: this is probably going to end up in an ot3 place because I'm me.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Find me on tumblr if you feel like chatting and/or yelling about this show.


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